配置

The primary configuration file for mkinitcpio is /etc/mkinitcpio.conf. Additionally, preset definitions are provided by kernel packages in the /etc/mkinitcpio.d directory (e.g. /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset).

Warning: lvm2, mdadm, and encrypt are NOT enabled by default. Please read this section carefully for instructions if these hooks are required.

Note: Users with multiple hardware disk controllers that use the same node names but different kernel modules (e.g. two SCSI/SATA or two IDE controllers) should ensure the correct order of modules is specified in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf. Otherwise, the root device location may change between boots, resulting in kernel panics.
A more elegant alternative is to use persistent block device naming to ensure that the right devices are mounted.

Users can modify six variables within the configuration file:

MODULES

Kernel modules to be loaded before any boot hooks are run.

BINARIES

Additional binaries to be included in the initramfs image.

FILES

Additional files to be included in the initramfs image.

HOOKS

Hooks are scripts that execute in the initial ramdisk.

COMPRESSION

Used to compress the initramfs image.

COMPRESSION_OPTIONS

Command line options to pass to the COMPRESSION program.

模块（MODULES）

The MODULES array is used to specify modules to load before anything else is done. To accelerate the boot process, users may opt to disable the udev hook and list required modules here instead:

Modules suffixed with a '?' will not throw errors if they are not found. This might be useful for custom kernels that compile in modules which are listed explicitly in a hook or config file.

Note: If using reiser4, it must be added to the modules list. Additionally, if you'll be needing any filesystem during the boot process that isn't live when you run mkinitcpio---for example, if your LUKS encryption key file is on an ext2 filesystem but no ext2 filesystems are mounted when you run mkinitcpio---that filesystem module must also be added to the MODULES list. See here for more details.

This article or section needs expansion.

Reason:please use the first argument of the template to provide a brief explanation. (Discuss in Talk:Mkinitcpio (简体中文)#)

If one of the above modules are required for the root device, consider explicitly adding it to /etc/mkinitcpio.conf to avoid kernel panics.

附加文件（BINARIES、FILES）

These options allow users to add files to the image. Both BINARIES and FILES are added before hooks are run, and may be used to override files used or provided by a hook. BINARIES are auto-located within a standard PATH and dependency-parsed, meaning any required libraries will also be added. FILES are added as-is. For example:

FILES="/etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf"

BINARIES="fsck fsck.ext4"

钩子扩展（HOOKS）

A hook is a script that executes in the initial ramdisk. Hooks are found within the /lib/initcpio/install directory; for a list of available hooks:

$ ls -1 /lib/initcpio/install

Use mkinitcpio's -H option to output help for a specific hook. For example, to display information about the base hook:

$ mkinitcpio -H base

Hooks are listed in order of execution, and are used to add files or modules to the image. Thus, hooks can affect installation – when mkinitcpio is run to generate the image – and/or runtime – via an included script that is run during boot. Scripts can be found within the /lib/initcpio/hooks directory.

The default configuration will work for most users with a standard setup:

HOOKS="base udev autodetect pata scsi sata filesystems"

If using the image on more than one machine, remove the autodetect hook, which tailors the image to the build machine:

HOOKS="base udev pata scsi sata filesystems"

For support for encrypted volumes on LVM2 volume groups:

HOOKS="base udev autodetect pata scsi sata lvm2 encrypt filesystems"

A table of common hooks and their function follows. Note that this table is not complete, as packages can provide custom hooks.

Common hooks

Hook

Installation

Runtime

base

Sets up all initial directories and installs base utilities and libraries. Always add this hook unless you know what you are doing.

--

udev

Adds udevd, udevadm, and a small subset of udev rules to your image.

Starts the udev daemon and processes uevents from the kernel; creating device nodes. As it simplifies the boot process by not requiring the user to explicitly specify necessary modules, using the udev hook is recommended.

autodetect

Shrinks your initramfs to a smaller size by creating a whitelist of modules from a scan of sysfs. Be sure to verify included modules are correct and none are missing. This hook must be run before other subsystem hooks in order to take advantage of auto-detection. Any hooks placed before 'autodetect' will be installed in full.

--

pata

Adds the new libata/PATA IDE modules to the image. Use this if your root device is on a IDE disk. Also use the autodetect hook if you want to minimize your image size

--

sata

Adds serial ATA modules to the image. Use this if your root device is on a SATA disk. Also use the autodetect hook if you want to minimize your image size.

--

scsi

Adds SCSI modules to the image. Use this if your root device is on a SCSI disk. Also use the autodetect hook if you want to minimize your image size.

--

usb

Adds USB modules to the image. Use this if your root device is on a USB mass storage device or if your USB mass storage device needs to be accessed otherwise (checked, mounted, etc.) at boot time.

--

usbinput

Adds USB HID modules to the image. Use this if you have an USB keyboard and need it in early userspace (either for entering encryption passphrases or for use in an interactive shell).

--

fw

Adds FireWire modules to the image. Use this if your root device is on a FW mass storage device.

Loads the specified keymap and consolefont from rc.conf during early userspace.

fsck

Adds the fsck binary and filesystem specific helpers. If added after the autodetect hook, only the helper specific to your root filesystem will be added.

Runs fsck against your root device prior to mounting.

编写钩子扩展

An initcpio hook is just another shell script containing necessary information pointing mkinitcpio which executables should be loaded and with what options. It can be useful in some rare occasions when something is needed in early or late userspace, when not provided by other already installed scripts.

First create the actual script:

/lib/initcpio/install/hook

#!/bin/bash
build() {
SCRIPT="hook" #the name of the hook
add_binary /bin/bash #/bin/bash is given as an example, you can type your desired executable here
}
help() {
cat <<HELPEOF
Line used as help information #Typing mkinitcpio -H hook will display this information
HELPEOF
}

Note: It is not necessary to make either of the two scripts executable, nor is it advised.

Now edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf accordingly to include your custom hook. You can also include it in /etc/rc.sysinit to load it in late userspace.

压缩方式（COMPRESSION）

The kernel supports several formats for compression of the initramfs - gzip, bzip2, lzma, xz (also known as lzma2), and lzo. For most use cases, gzip or lzop provide the best balance of compressed image size and decompression speed.

Specifying no COMPRESSION will result in a gzip compressed initramfs file. To create an uncompressed image, specify COMPRESSION=cat in the config or use -z cat on the command line.

压缩选项（COMPRESSION_OPTIONS）

These are additional flags passed to the program specified by COMPRESSION, such as:

COMPRESSION_OPTIONS='-9'

In general these should never be needed as mkinitcpio will make sure that any supported compression method has the necessary flags to produce a working image.

运行时配置

Runtime configuration options can be passed to init and certain hooks via the kernel command line. Kernel command line parameters are often supplied by the bootloader. For example, a typical Arch Linux GRUB entry:

In this case, root=/dev/sda3 and ro are kernel command line parameters. The options discussed below can be appended to the kernel command line to alter default behavior. See Arch Boot Process for more information.

init

Note: The following options alter the default behavior of init in the initramfs environment. See /lib/initcpio/init for details.

root

This is the most important parameter specified on the kernel command line, as it determines what device will be mounted as your proper root device. mkinitcpio is flexible enough to allow a wide variety of formats, for example:

If break or break=premount is specified, init pauses the boot process (after loading hooks, but before mounting the root filesystem) and launches an interactive shell which can be used for troubleshooting purposes. This shell can be launched after the root has been mounted by specifying break=postmount. Normal boot continues after exiting from the shell.

disablehooks

Disable hooks at runtime by adding disablehooks=hook1{,hook2,...}. For example:

disablehooks=resume

earlymodules

Alter the order in which modules are loaded by specifying modules to load early via earlymodules=mod1{,mod2,...}. (This may be used, for example, to ensure the correct ordering of multiple network interfaces.)

rootdelay

Pause for ten seconds before mounting the root file system by appending rootdelay. (This may be used, for example, if booting from a USB hard drive that takes longer to initialize.)

使用 RAID 磁盘阵列

First, add the mdadm hook to the HOOKS array and any required RAID modules to the MODULES array in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf.

Kernel Parameters:
Using the mdadm hook, you no longer need to configure your RAID array in the GRUB parameters. The mdadm hook will either use your /etc/mdadm.conf file or automatically detect the array(s) during the init phase of boot.

Assembly via udev is also possible using the mdadm_udev hook. Upstream prefers this method of assembly. /etc/mdadm.conf will still be read for purposes of naming the assembled devices if it exists.

Using net

An interface spec can be either short form, which is just the name of
an interface (eth0 or whatever), or long form. The long form consists
of up to seven elements, separated by colons:

ip=<client-ip>:<server-ip>:<gw-ip>:<netmask>:<hostname>:<device>:<autoconf>
nfsaddrs= is an alias to ip= and can be used too.

Parameter explanation:

<client-ip> IP address of the client. If empty, the address will
either be determined by RARP/BOOTP/DHCP. What protocol
is used depends on the <autoconf> parameter. If this
parameter is not empty, autoconf will be used.
<server-ip> IP address of the NFS server. If RARP is used to
determine the client address and this parameter is NOT
empty only replies from the specified server are
accepted. To use different RARP and NFS server,
specify your RARP server here (or leave it blank), and
specify your NFS server in the `nfsroot' parameter
(see above). If this entry is blank the address of the
server is used which answered the RARP/BOOTP/DHCP
request.
<gw-ip> IP address of a gateway if the server is on a different
subnet. If this entry is empty no gateway is used and the
server is assumed to be on the local network, unless a
value has been received by BOOTP/DHCP.
<netmask> Netmask for local network interface. If this is empty,
the netmask is derived from the client IP address assuming
classful addressing, unless overridden in BOOTP/DHCP reply.
<hostname> Name of the client. If empty, the client IP address is
used in ASCII notation, or the value received by
BOOTP/DHCP.
<device> Name of network device to use. If this is empty, all
devices are used for RARP/BOOTP/DHCP requests, and the
first one we receive a reply on is configured. If you
have only one device, you can safely leave this blank.
<autoconf> Method to use for autoconfiguration. If this is either
'rarp', 'bootp', or 'dhcp' the specified protocol is
used. If the value is 'both', 'all' or empty, all
protocols are used. 'off', 'static' or 'none' means
no autoconfiguration.

If the nfsroot parameter is NOT given on the command line, the default /tftpboot/%s will be used.

nfsroot=[<server-ip>:]<root-dir>[,<nfs-options>]

Parameter explanation:

<server-ip> Specifies the IP address of the NFS server. If this field
is not given, the default address as determined by the
`ip' variable (see below) is used. One use of this
parameter is for example to allow using different servers
for RARP and NFS. Usually you can leave this blank.
<root-dir> Name of the directory on the server to mount as root. If
there is a "%s" token in the string, the token will be
replaced by the ASCII-representation of the client's IP
address.
<nfs-options> Standard NFS options. All options are separated by commas.
If the options field is not given, the following defaults
will be used:
port = as given by server portmap daemon
rsize = 1024
wsize = 1024
timeo = 7
retrans = 3
acregmin = 3
acregmax = 60
acdirmin = 30
acdirmax = 60
flags = hard, nointr, noposix, cto, ac

root=/dev/nfs

If you do not use the nfsroot parameter, you need to set root=/dev/nfs to boot from an NFS root by autoconfiguration.

使用 lvm

If your root device is on lvm, you have to add the lvm2 hook. You have to pass your root device on the kernel command line in the format

root=/dev/mapper/<volume group name>-<logical volume name>

for example

root=/dev/mapper/myvg-root

使用加密根目录

If your root volume is encrypted, you need to add the encrypt hook. Then specify your root device on the kernel command line, just as if it was unencrypted.

For an encrypted partition on a SATA or SCSI disk:

root=/dev/sda5

For an encrypted LVM volume:

root=/dev/mapper/myvg-root

The root device will be automatically changed to /dev/mapper/root.

使用 LUKS 卷

If you use LUKS for hard disk encryption, the init script will detect the encryption automatically if the encrypt hook is enabled. It will then ask for a passphrase and try to unlock the volume.

If this fails, try to add your filesystem-module to the module list in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, if it is not compiled into your kernel.

Using a key-file

You can use a key-file to encrypt your root filesystem. Use the following format:

cryptkey=device:fs-type:path

device is the device-file representing the device your key is stored on (e.g. /dev/sda1), fs-type is the filesystem type of this device (e.g. ext3) and path is the path to the key-file inside the filesystem of this device.

Using legacy cryptsetup volumes

If you are using a legacy cryptsetup volume, you have to specify all cryptsetup options necessary to unlock it on the kernel command line. The option format is

crypto=hash:cipher:keysize:offset:skip

representing cryptsetup's --hash, --cipher, --keysize, --offset, and --skip options. If you omit an option, cryptsetup's default value is used, so you could just specify the following if you created your volume with the default settings:

crypto=::::

Note: For technical reasons, it is not possible to verify the correctness of your passphrase with legacy cryptsetup volumes. If you typed it wrong, mounting will simply fail. It is recommended that you use LUKS instead.

Using loop-aes volumes

mkinitcpio does not support loop-aes yet.

疑难解答

解压缩镜像

If you are curious about what is inside the initrd image, you can extract it and poke at the files inside of it.

The initrd image is an SVR4 CPIO archive, generated via the find and bsdcpio commands, optionally compressed with a compression scheme understood by the kernel: namely gzip, bzip2, lzma, lzo, or xz.

mkinitcpio includes a utility called lsinitcpio which will list and extract the contents of initramfs images.

You can list the files in the image with:

$ lsinitcpio /boot/initramfs-linux.img

And to extract them all in the current directory:

$ lsinitcpio -x /boot/initramfs-linux.img

You can also get a more human-friendly listing of the important parts in the image: